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    May 2015
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  1. Hi So I came up with a KQ based on the issue of people believing in superstitious chain mails: How can we justify irrational beliefs? However I'm a bit confused on the term "justify" - is it 1. "justify" whether irrational beliefs are good/bad? or 2. "justify" why is it possible for people to believe in irrational beliefs? or are both fine and I just have to pick whichever I want to talk about? Also, would you recommend using Faith as a WoK in such a KQ? since Faith in itself could be an irrational belief depending on how you look at it. Thanks!
  2. I'm not writing my EE (or know anyone who is) in Mathematics, so I can't help with the 1st question, but for the other two: 2. It doesn't matter for any essay really, as long as you're consistent throughout your whole work. My school was set on MLA for Literature essays and APA for Psych and Sciences, but the IBO says you can use any style as long as you use only one. Maybe check with your supervisor if he/she has a preference. 3. Yes, since you're doing more calculations than actual writing, and this reduces the word count. Science EEs are also a little shorter because the parts where they show their experiment set-ups do not require many words. Good luck!
  3. I knew someone who did a science EE (not sure which science) that had graphs copied from somewhere else to show the theories, and he did cite it. I think he cited it right below the graph (like Taken From: ......) and once more (just the website or book) in the normal fashion at the Reference page. I'm not very sure though since I'm not the one doing it, but maybe you should check how your citation style (MLA, APA, etc) cites graphs and charts. I'm sure I saw somewhere in the IBO guide that you must give credit to the sources where you took the graphs etc from. It also applies to Math IAs actually if I'm not mistaken.
  4. Hello I'm doing a trial for my TOK presentation soon, and as my real life issue came from news, and I found a news report on the issue. It's only an overall report on the news and it's 40 seconds long. Is it alright if I use it in my presentation to introduce my issue, and then take it from there? To me it seem more legitimate coming from a news clip, and afterward I will restate the issue briefly, and go on with my KIs and WoKs and AoKs etc. Is this allowed? Thank you!
  5. Hello I am doing an EE in English Literature, and I have some journal articles / literature reviews that I want to paraphrase / refer to in my essay to strengthen my arguments. I know that there are no official limit to how many articles/quotes to make, but I just want to know if there's any unspoken limit to: 1. How much we can paraphrase? Obviously I know that we cannot, like, quote half of the whole essay off other sources, but can someone give me a rough word count limit of when is too much? I feel like I've been quoting a lot, but yet I'm not sure if it's appropriately enough or too much as this is the first time I've had to research extensively and come up with this many sources. 2. How many quotes we can paraphrase from an article? For example, I really like how one review "put things", but I find that I've referred to it about 3-4 times. Is this bad? Thank you very much.
  6. The official policy on this from Oxbridge is that they will not discredit students for taking "soft subjects", but when a "soft" student comes up against one who takes "hard" (traditionally academic subjects), chances are they will go for the latter student. Why? Imo this is because most if not all Oxbridge degrees are purely academic in nature, and no matter what degree it's going to take a lot of reading, writing and research. Hard (does not mean difficult, merely extensive-reading-and-writing) subjects tend to show a student's capability of digesting research journals and articles, as well as critically analysing issues in essays (such as English Literature, Economics, History etc) which are all essential skills that are needed to perform well at Oxbridge. Hence taking a more "practical" subject that have perhaps 50% of the grade given to practical projects (like Theatre, Visual Arts, Music) may look less favourable in terms of skills learnt that will prepare you for Oxbridge, even though the projects ARE as (or more) difficult than writing long essays. Unless, of course, you're taking Music HL and looking at a Music degree from Oxbridge. On the other hand, other universities tend to offer more vocational/applied degrees, and so they do not mind students not having those skills that much as long as they are well-rounded applicants.
  7. Assuming you do not have any especially favourite subjects, I recommend: English A lang lit HL/SL French B HL/SL Economics HL/SL Math HL/SL Business HL/SL Biology HL/SL Perhaps something like this. It's a shame that you can't take IB Psychology since it will be quite beneficial to you to grasp an idea of what studying Psychology really means, but you can always pick up a textbook on it if you're interested. As to the above combination, a triple combo of Econs, Math and Business will give you a very sound base in whatever kind of business units/modules/courses you decide to choose in the future, and you can't go wrong with those subjects really. Take Math HL if you're good in Math, but you can take SL if you aren't that strong in it. Psychology and Business is a really flexible degree especially if you're going to those countries that you mentioned. Biology, preferably in HL, will give you a good foundation in the biological level of psychology. Oh and English Lang/Lit because of the language part where you get to discuss about how language transcends over time, used in society and stuff, there's a slight psychological (or sociological?) element about it compared to pure Literature. If you like stuff like History/Geo, you can always switch one of Econs/Business out Good luck!
  8. Go with whatever that interests you strongly as other people said. Why: you will hate your topic/issue halfway through your EE (or even during research) if you're not interested. Almost every subject has a low percentage of getting an A, but the chances of YOU getting an A in a subject you LOVE is a lot higher than in one that you do just for submission. Group 1s are not easy, you have to do lots of reading. Group 4s require you to carry out experiments and that might suck if you don't like sciences and setting up your own big experiment with little external help. Mathematics require strong mathematical skills and clear explanations. So...none of them are easier than Economics really.
  9. Not sure which EE subject you're planning to do so I'm not sure if a Book-Movie comparison is allowed, but EE Research Questions should start with "How/To what extent/The use of ___". You want the question to give you a lot of room for evaluation and giving your own thoughts and opinions, and it's best if you have some new ideas to contribute to the issue you're dealing with, rather than just explaining something
  10. Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely read up on both deconstructionism and feminism! One thing I would like to ask is: if there are multiple different definitions of deconstructionism, and I make sure to clearly define it in, say, definition X way in my introduction, and I will be use and base my essay on this definition, then examiners should be following definition X (for my essay) instead of definitions XYZ right? Thanks again
  11. Hello So I'm pretty sure not many people know what deconstruction is and I might not get many replies on this, but I just want to ask if this EE RQ is viable? My work - selected poems from the Transformations collection by Anne Sexton. What the poems do - retellings of fairytales in a satirical way and very different diction What it looks like and what many critiques think - feminist revision of fairy-tales by criticising love, marriage, beauty, and happy-ever-afters. My initial question was something like "how does diction contribute to the portrayal of feminism/gender roles in fairytales", but it made me feel that I would just be explaining and not really evaluating. But deconstruction is kinda deep ****, and I'm not very sure if it's an allowed RQ? I just want some opinions before I dump a bombshell on my teacher that I want to change RQ. Btw, deconstruction is something along the lines of a text having multiple meanings and interpretations instead of one strict interpretation (like feminism and so on). Thanks!
  12. Thank you for this post It's really helpful!
  13. Thanks for the reply. If I want to make generalisations and do it on the whole collection, I'd be referring to more than 10 poems right? Wouldn't it feel too shallow, or is that fine since I'm talking about the whole collection and not just one particular poem? I've seen some EE topics on more general topics, like the theme of isolation in xxx's poetry. With such a general word like "poetry", I assume the student would be taking examples and quotes from various poetry collections of said author, and based them all on the theme. My problem is wondering if that approach is too superficial. It's fun but really hard to do a poetry EE - almost nobody does it so it's hard to find samples to see how others structure this sort of EE.
  14. Hello, thanks for the reply The thing is, 4000 words is only enough for me to analyse 2 poems in depth, or multiple (10-12) but not deep (as in just taking various quotes from them). Each poem has 10 stanzas (100 or so lines) so it's about twice the length of a common poem. So for common 4-5 stanza poems I might be able to write 4 of them, but for mine, with the poem length I can only manage to fit about 2 poems for sufficient depth. I wouldn't have this problem if I could fit 4-5 poems actually, haha
  15. Hello there, So I've gone and done my IA on probability - only to find that my "use of mathematics" part is lacking. Atm my teacher is only willing to give me 13/20 (which is quite low since I'm aiming for a 7). My IA is on Prosecutor's Fallacy and solving that through Bayes' Theorem, and I guess it is rather simplistic because Bayes Theorem is HL (I'm SL) and to delve a lot further into the theorem is too complicated for me. I've just heard that probability IAs are infamous for lacking in Criteria E, which carries a lot of marks. At this point I'm quite sure I don't have the time to change my topic since I've got other IAs to do, so are there any ideas on how I can increase my Crit.E marks? My IA basically goes: -Overview of Prosecutor Fallacy -Self-made example of how it works -Application of Bayes Theorem into the Fallacy (simple overview with self-made example) -Application of Bayes Theorem into a famous criminal trial The thing is, besides simple conditional probability and using the Bayes' formula to solve the fallacy, I didn't do much math, didn't prove the theorem or anything like that, and I'm at my wits' end on how to improve without going much too deep. Please advise, thank you
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